RIM's hard core business devices, the 8800 series, have long been overshadowed by the slicker and more entertaining Curve and Pearl model lines. That trend has ended, though, now that the new Bold 9000 series of devices are shipping. The BlackBerry Bold 9000 maintains the 8800's slightly larger form factor and keyboard but packs in a high-resolution display and modern multimedia features and stuffs them into a striking new design.
The corporate suits, it seems, no longer have reason to be envious of the regular folk.
Physical Aspects
The Bold 9000 is fairly large by BlackBerry standards. At 115mm x 67mm x 15mm (4.5" x 2.6" x .6") in size and 139.1g (4.9oz) heavy, it is 1mm wider and taller than even the BlackBerry 8800, and weighs a few grams more as well. It is still pocketable, but is getting a bit large for people with smaller hands. But if you can deal with the heft, the Bold is a very beautifully designed and solidly built device that will look at home in boardrooms and ballrooms alike.
The satin finish metal frame that makes up the exterior edges of the Bold perfectly sets off the black face and faux leather rear cover of the phone. It is an extremely rich and classy looking phone. The half-VGA (480x320 pixel) display just adds to the look, offering gorgeous colors and fine detail alike. It is, quite possibly, the best looking display on the market. That fine display sits above an equally fine full QWERTY keyboard that offers large keys with superb tactile feedback. It is one of the best QWERTY keyboards available on a phone today.
Like most modern BlackBerry devices, the Bold 9000 uses a trackball controller instead of a d-pad. While it works pretty well, we feel that it is somehow less perfectly tuned than the trackball found on the Curve 8300 series of BlackBerry smartphones. It is still good, but just not quite on the mark. It won't be an issue during day to day use of the phone, but it does make navigation slightly less smooth an experience than it otherwise could have been.
On the right edge of the Bold one will find the volume control and the right "convenience" key, which is by default set to activate the camera. Another convenience key is located on the left side of the phone, and it calls up a task-switcher on the screen that provides quick access to recently used applications. The miniUSB power/data connector and a full 3.5mm headphone socket are also on the left edge of the phone, next to a nicely hinged cover for the microSD memory card slot. It is just a shame that it is so hard to remove a card from the slot. Up top can be found the mute key, which can be used to put the phone into standby mode, while the camera lens and assist LED are located on the back.
Apart from the trackball issue, which is likely software related, there is virtually nothing about the Bold 9000 other than its size and weight that one could find worthy of complaint. The build is rock solid, the design is beautiful, and the hardware is supremely functional. Even how the magnetic latch in the included belt holster automatically turns the phone's display on and off shows that RIM is paying attention to the details.
Core Functions
The RIM BlackBerry Bold 9000 performs remarkably well as a regular phone. It offers very good reception and fantastic audio quality during calls - even when using the speakerphone. As a 3G phone it can't be expected to get huge amounts of talk time from a full charge, but the 5 hours that it's rated for should suffice for most people. RIM rates the phone as being capable of 13 days of standby time, but that seems a bit optimistic to us. But even with RIM's signature BlackBerry push email enabled, many people will be able to go 3 days between charges with moderate use.
Contact management on the BlackBerry Bold is top notch. Searching for contacts is quite simple, one merely has to start typing the first few characters of the first and/or last name to see a list of matching records. This makes it simple to find me, for example, by typing "M O". The contact editor, which supports most every piece of contact info imaginable, has been cleaned up quite a bit in the 4.6 version of the BlackBerry OS that runs on the Bold.
The BlackBerry ring profile system is very powerful, but equally complicated. If you are more or less satisfied with the default profile configurations, switching from one profile to the next is a simple matter from the standby screen. If you want to change things up a bit, however, the mass quantity of available settings for each profile might make the task seem a bit daunting. You can configure the profiles in very fine detail, but it could take a while to get things set exactly how you want them.
The Bold has a very nice speed dial system on board. Most every key on the QWERTY keyboard can be assigned to a phone number from a contact. Hence, you could have 'M' set as a speed dial for your mother, and 'O' for the office. Very convenient. The voice dialing application on the Bold is also great, and works without any training.
Messaging is what the BlackBerry Bold does best. The phone can support many different email accounts, corporate, IMAP4, or POP3 in nature. SMS and MMS messages can have their own inbox or can be combined with email. There are many keyboard shortcuts for dealing with messages, as there are for most parts of the BlackBerry system, and experienced users will be able to bang out messages at an amazing pace. The BlackBerry IM client is pre-installed on the device and Google's GTalk can be had for free as well. AT&T has chosen to not include a client for the other major IM systems out there.
The only limitation with the messaging system that we have noticed is the lack of folder support for Microsoft Exchange servers. Apart from that, though, the push email works fantastically and it is very simple to add a new email account right from the BlackBerry itself. It is a great system.
As a 3G device, it shouldn't be a surprise that the Bold appears to pull down data at a quick clip. It is unfortunate that we can't test just how quickly it downloads, though, since our normal bandwidth tester is not compatible with BlackBerry data services. We can tell you that the Bold will supportMultimedia / Applications
Like most recent BlackBerry devices, RIM has equipped the Bold with enough multimedia goodies to keep most people happy. The fun starts off with a reasonably capable fixed-focus 2 megapixel camera. Given enough light the camera takes colorful photos that look very good on the Bold's display. Full size viewing shows their limitations a bit, but the photos are still good enough for sending to friends via email or posting on Flickr. The LED flash that supports the camera works far better than we had expected, as you can see in the sample shots at the end of this review.
The bold can even shoot full 480x320 resolution video that looks pretty good when viewed on the Bold's display. The quality won't cause any jaws to drop, but they should at least allow Bold users to upload decent looking videos to YouTube and other video sites. The quality is also more than adequate for carrying a moving picture of loved ones with you on business trips.
The Bold 9000's media player app is pretty reasonable. It organizes music by artist, album, genre, and song title - and even offers a search function. Playback audio quality sounded good in general when we tested the device with a pair of Bose QC2 sound canceling headphones, which plugged directly into the Bold's standard 3.5mm socket (wired stereo headphones are included). Compared with some older versions of the BlackBerry OS, the music app on the Bold is easy to control with the trackball. It is capable of playing in the background while the device is used for other tasks, and the player can be quickly started and stopped with the Mute button that is located next to the headphone socket. Any
The BlackBerry Bold 9000 supports the standard PIM organizer apps that you would expect in any smartphone. The calendar, task list, and memos (notes) all will synchronize with your PC via Bluetooth or USB, or with your corporate network if your company runs a BlackBerry Enterprise Server. The calendar program is reasonably flexible in use, and offers an "agenda" view that lists your upcoming appointments, even if they are days away. It also offers more traditional month, week, and day views.
Our Bold came pre-loaded with 5 simple games, one of which is the normal BrickBreaker that we expect to find on all BlackBerry smartphones. The phone also comes with a number of other applications installed. There is the typical calculator app, but also a password keeper and the new FaceBook app for BlackBerry. DataViz has also supplied the Bold with read-only versions of its Documents 2 Go suite for viewing Microsoft Office compatible files.
The new built-in web browser in the Bold 9000 works quite a bit better than the version we saw in past Curve and Pearl handsets. This browser offers a desktop PC like mouse pointer that is controlled with the trackball, and is capable of displaying normal websites with ease. As with the Peal Flip 8220 that we recently tested, javascript programming seems to tax the browser excessively, slowing down the experience a fair bit. In any case, this is an upgrade that BlackBerry users have been waiting a long time for.
The BlackBerry Bold 9000 has a hefty 860MB of built-in storage space and a
User Interface
While RIM's BlackBerry devices have always been very efficient tools in the hands of an experienced user, they have not always been the most user friendly devices on the market. The new UI seen in BlackBerry OS 4.6 is a step forward in that it is not quite so spartan looking, but it still has its problems. The default menu on the device is better than we've seen previously, thanks to better use of folders and new iconography that makes the contents of the folders more obvious. But we are still left with things like the Options screen that is just a hugely long list of settings with no real organization. As has always been the case, the BlackBerry OS requires a lot of scrolling.
This is not to suggest that the current UI doesn't have some real advantages. For example, highlighting and copying text from an email message is far easier on a trackball equipped BlackBerry than on any other non-touchscreen device on the market. The trackball itself is also a great tool in the BlackBerry's arsenal.
One of the things that differentiates the BlackBerry UI from those of most other phones is the total lack of softkeys. Instead, the Bold requires constant use of the menu key or the briefer, context sensitive menus accessed by pressing on the trackball. A host of keyboard shortcuts are available as well, though they might not all be obvious. All of this can be quite confusing for new users.
The UI has been changing, though. The new look of the email and message viewers is a prime example. While still very subdued looking, there are now, at least, a few curved corners on boxes and some subtle color shades in use that make the apps look modern. The older apps in prior versions of the OS were throwbacks to the DOS days of computing.
The BlackBerry OS offers the user a decent amount of control over things like font style and size. As such, those with strong eyes can pack a lot of small text onto the screen, while others can go for a larger, more readable font. The Bold's UI also lets the user choose a theme and a background image for the standby screen and main menu, though we miss the ability to view appointments and message titles on the standby screen that we saw in older OS themes.
The main menu, like most BlackBerry menus, can be overwhelmingly large. Now that the main menu comes pre-configured with folders, though, things have improved a little. Icons in the menu can be rearranged or moved into folders, and users also have the option to hide any icon completely. Hidden icons can be accessed when needed by switching the system to "Show All" for a moment. The Show All and Hide functions are accessed by hitting the dedicated menu key when viewing the main menu.
RIM is finally starting to give the software side of its phones the same kind of polish that the hardware has had for some time. The user interface is still 100% BlackBerry, and will be very quick in experienced hands, but it is starting to become a bit more friendly looking to new users, though it still often requires something akin to a manhunt to track down some things.
Conclusion
While it's larger size and slightly increased bulk might keep the new BlackBerry Bold 9000 from appealing to everybody, it is clear that this is the best QWERTY equipped BlackBerry device on offer. It has stunning good looks, a knock-out feature set, and an all new BlackBerry OS that looks as good as the phone itself.
If you are looking for the ultimate in mobile email, the BlackBerry Bold 9000 from RIM is a device you should look long and hard at. It excels at most everything and looks fine while doing it. We give it a "Highly Recommended" rating with no reservations.